Mitt Is It?

As Sarah Palin, a plain rash if there ever was one, irritates people along the East Coast with her non-campaign tour, titillating her rabid fans as if she were Lady Gaga, Mitt Romney has officially entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

The differences between the two politicians could not be any clearer. Palin seeks to appeal to the basest instincts of the American voter, plastering excerpts from the Pledge of Allegiance on her tour bus to, as author James Kunstler says, appeal to voters who are proud to have made it as far as first grade. Romney is a grownup. He plans to talk about the economy - the one issue on which President Obama remains vulnerable - more than on ideology - and he has the bona fides to back himself up, as a successful venture capitalist, the rescuer of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, and governor of Massachusetts.

Romney's biggest liability with the libertarians who now control the Republican party is the health care reform legislation he sired in Massachusetts, because of the mandate that all Massachusetts residents buy health insurance. Except that it's working to bring down health care costs, and Romney has said that, while he opposes doing anything similar on the federal level, each state should do as it sees fit to reform health care on its own - and that his approach happened to be compatible with his state. He won't renounce the Massachusetts health care plan. His Mormon faith may remain a sore spot among the evangelical Protestant voters who dominate the Republican primaries and caucuses. But I don't think many other voters, Republican or otherwise, will fear that a President Romney will take orders from the Mormon Church.

Unfortunately for Romney, one advantage Sarah Palin has over Romney is her ability to generate buzz. He announced his presidential candidacy in New Hampshire at the same time she was in the state, and so she bumped him off the front page of the Manchester Union-Leader. Romney should be glad the Internet's killing print media. He probably isn't thankful, though, that anyone can search the Internet and find video clips of his TV interviews demonstrating that he can't get his position on the auto company bailout straight.

Nevertheless, Romney, like Obama, has the substance. If he's the 2012 nominee, the debate between Romney and Obama on the economy will be most substantial debate on the topic in years - maybe even decades.